“Where else would I be?”
16
The restof the day passes without incident, and we get back to the captured outpost as the sun is getting low in the sky.
It’s a relief to discover that everything has been running smoothly with our people. There have been no attacks, advances, or ruses, and everyone has been staffing their positions without problem.
But I still feel weird. Restless. Heavy and at loose ends rather than driven and focused like I normally am when I’m on the job.
It’s probably from getting away from all of it even for a couple of days. My responsibilities are a lot, and I’ve been carrying them for years now. I’ve never taken any sort of break—not since Ben and I returned from that year in the wilderness. While these two days haven’t been easy or restful, they’ve been different. Set apart from our normallives. But now we’re dumped right back into the hard, gritty, endless fight.
It puts me immediately into a bad mood.
After getting all the updates, I try to figure out what to do for the remainder of the evening. We’re still in the same holding pattern in this outpost, so there’s nothing concrete for me to tackle at the moment. That only intensifies my jittery angst, so I walk the perimeter a couple of times, checking in with all the lookouts and pretending to do something constructive.
Ben comes with me for the first circuit, but he’s silently hovering. He keeps turning his bloodstone ring on his finger, the way he always does when he’s anxious or restless. So I send him away before I make the second round.
I try to relax back into my normal matter-of-fact efficiency when I return to the courtyard where everyone off duty is hanging out, but I can’t seem to find my typical calm. Emotions keep churning in my head and my chest, sometimes expanding so dramatically I’m afraid they might explode.
Twice Ben asks if I’m okay, and I tell him I’m fine. On the third time, I lose it. “Stop hovering!”
His presence beside me in the courtyard, still turning that ring on his finger, is making all those churning feelings worse.
He doesn’t stop hovering, but he increases the distance between us so that helps a little.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I’ve always been kind of prickly by nature, but I’ve never been likethis. And Ben is the last person in the world who should be pushed away so rudely.
After a few minutes, I find him again. “Sorry I snapped at you.”
He usually shrugs these things off, but he doesn’t this time. “I don’t give a damn about your tone, but you sure as hell better not be pushin’ me away.”
My attempt at civility crashes. “I’m not pushing you away. Don’t be ridiculous.”
His expression tenses into a bad-tempered frown. “Sure fuckin’ feels like it.”
“Ben, stop.”
“I’m not gonna?—”
“Stop!” I don’t raise my voice because there are so many others around us. But the one word bites.
Ben hears it as well as I do. Still glowering, he takes a few steps back.
If I thought he was relenting or retreating, I’d feel better, but he’s not. He’s still hovering, brooding, willing me to be different.
Wanting me to be softer and sweeter and more like a woman he could love.
I’m not any of those things, and returning has made that truth as clear and blinding as winter sunshine on snow.
Teresa was always the soft one.
Me—I’m as soft as cut glass.
A little while later,when Vella mentions we need more soap, I volunteer to go check the main storage room to get some. The outpost is stocked with supplies the guards and administrators here would need on a regular basis, and soap is one of those items.
The storage room is in the far corner of the building, down the back hallway. I find several boxes of soap easily, but the stock on these shelves have been rifled through often these past days. The mess bugs me, and I still want something to do, so I start organizing the supplies, returning items to their appropriate boxes and then moving them in a more logical order.
